The Netflix landing page is fantastic

by david

(Click to see it fullscreen.)

I just went to Netflix, and apparently I haven’t logged in on this computer in awhile. LOOK at this photo.

1. Their faces. They’re paying RAPT attention. They’re enjoying the moment. They’re looking at the menu. THE MENU. If this were a restaurant ad, their faces would be the “pleasured eating faces” but they’d be making the “oh, this cheese” face while looking at words describing cheese. This family is insane.

2. Their couch is way too close to the TV, and at an angle that even a realtor wouldn’t advise. I understand cheating out for the audience, but there’s cheating, and then there’s counting cards out loud. Subtle, Netflix photographer. Subtle.

3. Seriously, nobody can reach those pretzels. Have you ever left pretzel sticks out in the open? These people clearly hate pretzels.

4. Really? A heaping bowl of popcorn, untouched? This is what we’re supposed to imagine our family like when we subscribe to Netflix? See above pretzel question: do you know what popcorn is like if it sits? Boo.

5. They can’t reach those hot beverages! And are two going without, or are four people sharing two unreachable mugs? No matter how this ends, it ends poorly.

6. None of them are holding phones or iPads. In a house with that art on the wall, I call bullshit. Every single one of them owns two or three devices, and the kids would have DTs right now if they didn’t have them in their hands.

7. WHAT THE HELL CATEGORY OF MOVIE ARE THEY LOOKING FOR? The selection of titles presented to them, the selection they’re so hot for, is neither “Cerebral Confused Identity Crime Drama” nor “Critically-Acclaimed Foreign Animal Love Story” nor even “Indie Action Travelogue Documentaries You Pretend You’ve Already Seen.” It looks to me like Netflix offered this family “Serial Killer Comedies Starring Real Serial Killers Playing Their Victims” which is probably the viewing material that would tie this family together.

Netflix, show us something real. Three people sitting on different, distant pieces of mismatched furniture, half paying attention over their iPhones while their roommate scans the categories “Embarrassing Smut Turned Down by Cinemax”, “Shit We’ve Queued Up Because You’ve Got Shit Taste”, and “Batman Again.”